Brown River Queen (13 page)

“So I hear the
Queen
is cursed,” I said.

He didn’t flinch or scoot suddenly away.
 

“So some say, sir.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I do not.” He lifted his hands toward the deck and the empty casino. “She is a thing of wood and glass. Beautiful, yes. She has no power to kill.”

“Still. A dozen fatal accidents? How do you explain that?”

“I do not, sir. But if anything beyond carelessness and misadventure killed these men, it wasn’t the
Queen
. Good day, sir. I trust you will enjoy your stay.”

And then he bowed a stiff little bow and he motioned his terrified young assistant out of the shadows and together they hurried away.

Darla joined me as they vanished into the dark.

“Did you hear all that?”

“Oh, yes. He sounded like a man with a lot to say.”

I took another draught of beer. It was dark but smooth and rich. If I was drinking Copeland Dark I was going to need more than one barrel.

“So, wife of mine, what have we learned from our little walk?”

“Well, the Arkham vineyards use far too much ash on their south-facing grapes, for one,” she said. “And the buyers at Second Palace are skimping by using cheap casks, which give the vintage a bitter tone.”

“Fascinating. Anything else?”

“Evis forgot to mention a dozen deaths and a mysterious curse.”

“Oh, he didn’t forget to mention anything.” I motioned toward the stage at the far end of the casino and we began to weave our way toward it through sheet-covered gambling tables. “He simply didn’t think it was relevant. Any construction project, even boat-building, can be dangerous. Evis dismissed the rumors as nonsense, not even worthy of mention.”

Darla nodded. “I suppose Evis would think that way.”

“Which is why we’re poking around without him. Even an honest client isn’t always going to give you the whole story, because they themselves don’t see it all.”

“So you think she’s really cursed?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t think anything just yet.”

“So where do we go next?”

I pointed toward the first door I happened to see. “Out there. And then down. Something has to move this boat, and someone has to feed it coal, and it won’t be men in suits who’ve been warned what to say and what not to say.”

“Coal, you say?”

“Coal, my dear. Or wood, or old boots, for all I know. Let’s go and see.”

She put her empty wineglass on a sheet-covered table. I put my empty beer bottle next to it and offered her my arm.

“Let’s go see the Ogres, Duchess.”

“Certainly,” she said, taking my arm.
 

And with that, we sought out ways down into the dark.

Chapter Eight

I was right about the coal and the Ogres.

Coal moves the
Queen
. It’s shoveled into three massive iron tanks called boilers by teams of Ogres that work in half-hour shifts. There is a fourth boiler tended by a pair of wand-wavers that requires no coal at all. One of the wand-wavers, a skinny lad barely out of his hundreds, tried to explain the magical heating process to me but he kept getting excited and lapsing into wizard-speak, and all I came away with from the conversation was that the single magical boiler could run the whole works in a pinch.

The Ogres were less talkative. Two dipped eyes at me, which might have meant they were Hoogas who knew my name or they were annoyed by my mere presence, and the sawdust was making them blink. I don’t speak enough Ogre to ask any questions, let alone understand the answers, so I just dipped my eyes in return and kept a respectful distance.

Keeping distance wasn’t hard above the engine deck. Up there, spacious and airy were the orders of the day. But down here, with the Ogres and the wand-wavers and the engineers and the boiler-men, Avalante hadn’t seen fit to trim the walls or even keep the ceiling at a safe height. I bumped my head half a dozen times, much to Darla’s quiet amusement.

“Where do they keep the coal?” she asked as we walked in a crouch toward another cluster of gleaming but incomprehensible machinery.

“I think Engineer Bartles mentioned something about a storage room at the fore.” I dodged another beam and wondered how the towering Ogres fared in the semi-dark maze.
 

“Bartles? He kept staring at my bosom. I don’t believe he leaves his post very often. And fore means front, I assume?”

“It does. Fore is front, port is left, starboard is right, and aft is where the big wheel turns.”

“Why don’t they just say left, right, front, and back, then?”

“Ask Bartles. Maybe he knows.”

“I’m not quite that curious. Although I am curious about one thing. When you mentioned the accidents, neither Bartles nor the other man seemed to know what you were talking about. Were they lying?”

I stopped at the face of the machine, which was a polished brass cabinet festooned with dials and levers and tiny red lamps that twinkled and shone in some pattern I couldn’t fathom.

“They weren’t lying,” I said. “They just didn’t know. They stay down here in the dark and they tend to their machines and what happens up there might as well happen way out west, for all they care.”

“You’d think the people living in the dark would be the ones most frightened by curses and the like.” She joined me in watching the blood-red lamps pulse and glow. “What in Heaven’s name does all this do?”

“This station allows the operator to oversee temperatures and pressures in every section of the
Queen’s
machinery,” said Evis, who simply stepped out of the shadows and joined us before the banks of lights and dials. “It’s one of three such stations. The gentleman who mans this position is called the lamp man. I trust your tour of the
Queen
has proven informative?”

Evis wasn’t wearing his dark-tinted spectacles down here in the shadows. The glow from the lamps gave his pale, angular face a devilish red hue and turned his white eyes into pulsing wells of fire.

He grinned, perfectly aware of his appearance.

Gertriss darted up to his side. “Hiya, boss, Darla,” she said. Then she reached up and yanked Evis’s ear. “You promised you wouldn’t make spooky eyes at people down here, didn’t you?”

The dapper little vampire chuckled, pulled his tinted spectacles from his coat pocket, and shrugged as he put them on.

“Consider it chastisement for starting the grand tour without me,” he said. “So, uncover any dastardly plots yet? You could say yes and save me a fortune, you know.”

I nodded gravely and dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It seems you’re foisting at least one unacceptable wine upon the drinking public, Mr. Prestley. I shall be forced to report this at once to the proper authorities.”

“So you’ve met Mr. Lavit. I might have known you’d start your inquiries at the nearest beer tap. Shall we head to the upper decks? I suspect a lavish meal is being prepared.”

“They’re using us as training for the kitchens,” added Gertriss cheerfully. She was wearing grey today—grey long skirts and grey blouse with just a hint of white at the neck. She laid an arm possessively on Evis’s shoulder and I wondered if she realized she did or just let the action slip. “They’re pulling out all the stops, as sort of a practice run for the cruise. It’ll be quite a feast, isn’t that right, Mr. Prestley?”

Evis nodded wordlessly. Gertriss laughed and removed her hand.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. Darla said something to Gertriss and they paired off, whispering in the dark as Evis gestured toward the next bank of dim lights in the shadows.

“After you,” I said. “Warn me about low hanging beams, won’t you? My head has a tender spot.”

“Right between your ears,” offered Evis before he glided ahead. The last glimpse I saw of his face showed the visage of a man deep in thought.

I grinned and hurried after, Darla and Gertriss giggling and whispering in my wake.

Even the halfdead, it seemed, had doubts and conflicts about matters of the heart.

True to his word, Evis took us on a long, detailed tour of the
Queen’s
many niceties.

He started off by exchanging a few quiet words with the workmen still toiling frantically away on the casino deck. Satisfied, he led us to the stage, caused the curtains to be raised, and then he bade us to gaze out on the darkened room before motioning toward someone my mortal eyes couldn’t pick out of the shadows.

The massive chandeliers that hung above the casino floor flared slowly to life.
 

Darla, close at my side, took in a sudden breath and covered her mouth with her hand. Gertriss beamed at Evis, who winked at her behind his tinted spectacles and clapped his hands once.

The lights blazed, bathing the vast chamber in a bright, ethereal glow. I peeked through my fingers at the lights, which shone like patches of sky torn from the heavens and folded and woven and then somehow suspended from the
Queen’s
curving ceiling.

The lights spun and twinkled and moved. The light they cast didn’t so much shine upon you as envelope you.
 

“Magic,” said Darla, playing her fingers through the light as though her hands were submerged in warm, flowing water. “It must be.”

“We call them starlights,” said Evis with a closed-lip smile. “They cost a small fortune. Each one took three years to build. And by Yule there’ll be half a dozen hanging in the High House, or I’m a badger.”

He clapped again, and the starlights faded, and the shadows returned.

“Sorry, but they’re expensive to keep lit. Unless you’d care to lose a few large sums at our brand new gaming tables?”

“Not a chance.” I looked out across the empty casino. “So, how many gaming tables have you got?”

“Two hundred and ninety, to start. Card games there, roulette wheels there, something new we call a slot machine over there. Something for everyone, including the ladies.”

I whistled. I couldn’t even estimate the earning the House expected to pull in, night after night, but I didn’t think it would take long to pay off the
Queen’s
lavish construction expenses.

“And all of it tax free,” said Evis in tones that suggested worship.

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. The Regent himself signed off on it. Any gambling that takes place on a boat is exempt from Regency taxation. Oh, we agreed to fund certain civic projects out of our earnings, but not a cent goes to taxes.”

“How many of these boats are you building?”

Evis shrugged and pretended to inspect a talon. “Six or eight, I forget which.”
 

Gertriss smiled. She put her arm on Evis’s shoulder again.

“Tell them the rest, won’t you?”

“Later,” he said, tapping his ear. “In private.”

She laughed.
 

“We have three more decks to show you,” said Evis. “If you please?”

By the time we reached the top deck, which Evis called the promenade, my feet were aching in my fancy shoes and even Gertriss was beginning to pant.

We walked every hall. Climbed every stair. Inspected every stateroom. Poked in every closet. For one awful moment I was convinced we were going to flush every toilet and test every doorknob for quality of polish and ease of use.

Whatever else Evis might love, I whispered to Darla, he loved that damned boat more.

I got a kick in the shins for my insight.
 

Hours passed. Bunions were born. Mouths went dry.

But I did learn a few things.

The
Queen’s
layout was meant to channel guests toward the casino or the half-dozen plush bars located at strategic places around the top three decks. There were no clocks anywhere in sight. Evis said this was to ensure that passengers were relaxed and unhurried. I suspected it was an effort to keep gamblers unaware of the passage of time, which might in turn remind them of the passage of their money from their pockets to the
Queen’s
safes.
 

Darla and I had a stateroom on the second deck. All the rooms there were comfortable and well appointed.
 

The rooms—excuse me, suites—on the next deck up were twice the size of mine, and probably came with butlers and big-eyed, half-Elf maids. The beds? You could build my house on one of those beds and have room left over for a middling-large garden.

The next deck, the promenade, was even more lavish and ornate. There were only half a dozen suites, each featuring sitting rooms and smoking rooms and bathtubs I could paddle about in—if I was fond of paddling about with irate rich people.

The only suite we couldn’t enter was the one being prepared for the Regent. It was guarded by a full dozen of his personal bodyguards, with a pair of black-robed wand-wavers hovering nearby. Flashes beneath the doors and bangs from behind the thick walls hinted at sorcerous wards being laid inside.

Evis didn’t elaborate, and neither Darla nor I asked. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until we took a corner and were finally out of sight of the Regent’s expressionless personal guards.